A data source is a specific instance of data hosted by some database management system (DBMS). Examples include Microsoft SQL Server, Microsoft Access, Borland dBASE, and xBASE. You can have one or more CDatabase objects active at a time in your application.

Note

If you are working with the Data Access Objects (DAO) classes rather than the Open Database Connectivity (ODBC) classes, use class CDaoDatabase instead. For more information, see the article Overview: Database Programming.

To use CDatabase, construct a CDatabase object and call its OpenEx member function. This opens a connection. When you then construct CRecordset objects for operating on the connected data source, pass the recordset constructor a pointer to your CDatabase object. When you finish using the connection, call the Close member function and destroy the CDatabase object. Close closes any recordsets you have not closed previously.